4 Responses to The Believer

Bless you for writing this. I couldn’t believe her chirpy, lit-chick prose about believing that writers and artists are basically good. Is she channeling Anne Frank as a Bennington girl? This is inches away from being Daily Candy for lit majors.

i just discovered “The Believer” last night at a bookstore and swooped it up like a dropped $20 bill. i was disappointed and frustrated. You are so right about the Eggers High Ironic voice. Blegh! Do you people really like this? I mean, OK, it was clever ONCE. Dave Eggers and Co. seem like an intrepid dedicated bunch. I was sorry “The Believer” felt so same-old-same-old.

I heard the initial rumors about ‘the Balloonist’ and have been intrigued ever since. Actually this is the first place I’ve heard that ‘The Believer’ actually is ‘The Balloonist’. Which is a bit frustrating now that I have ‘The Believer’ in my hot little hands. I’ve only read about half of it so far and feel like I’ve been pitched a Nolan Ryan change-up. I have to say that my biggest beef is that I am forced to carry the burden of their ‘HIGH ROAD’ bash on advertising – 8 bux is too much. And I also agree that the high brow Eggers-non-sensical snarkiness could have been ditched along the way… but am very happy that this isn’t a McSweeney’s remake (which is totally uncomprehensible).

But at the end of the day I have to say, I do (mostly) like it. How rare is it to see writers in the highflying book-publishing orbit consider their readers as fellow sentient beings? It’s at least a start anyway. I wonder at how good Heidi will be at keeping ‘The Believer’ aimed in this direction.